Onkyo’s receivers to make themselves at home with upcoming Sonos integration

Posted:
Wednesday, May 16, 2018 11:27 AM EDT

By Kris Wouk

Content Provided by

If you’ve recently bought a higher-end Onkyo, Integra, Pioneer, or Pioneer Elite receiver and wish you could integrate it with your Sonos wireless multiroom system, you may soon get your wish. On Wednesday, May 16, Onkyo Corp and Onkyo USA announced that some recent and future models from the above brands will be receiving “Works with Sonos” certification, enabling them to work with Sonos systems.

Certified models will integrate seamlessly with the Sonos platform, letting you treat your your hi-fi or home theater system as another component in your Sonos system. You’ll be able to stream music directly from the Sonos app to your receiver, and even control things like volume directly from the app. The functionality will be coming to supported models via a firmware update in June.

“For more than 70 years, Onkyo has been at the forefront of delivering premium sound and adding Sonos compatibility enables custom installers and home theater fans access to Sonos’ renowned whole-home audio,” Onkyo USA director of product localization Don Milks said in a statement. “Now the Sonos app that you are familiar with can stream your favorite content to your network receiver adding tremendous value and convenience to any system.”

The ability to treat your receiver as part of your Sonos system isn’t the only new functionality that supported receivers will get. As Sonos has recently added voice control via Amazon Alexa, you’ll be able to use limited voice control functionality on your receiver as well. Given the nature of Sonos’ voice control, you likely won’t be able to control every aspect of the receiver with your voice, but it will still come in handy. Some receivers from Onkyo brands already feature Google Assistant support via Google Home, so this won’t be brand new functionality for them, but if you’d rather control everything via your Sonos system, this will be a welcome addition.

So far, there is no indication which models from each brand will receive Sonos compatibility, but Onkyo says it will announce supported models in early June when the firmware enabling Sonos support becomes available. All signs point to June 6, when Sonos is holding an event. The company hasn’t said what it might announce, but it’s likely we’ll see compatible models announced on that date.